Structure and Formatting of a CSS Rule

Property Lists

Some properties can take multiple values, collectively known as a property list.

/* Two values in this property list */
span {
    text-shadow: yellow 0 0 3px, green 4px 4px 10px;
}

/* Alternate Formatting */
span {
    text-shadow:
        yellow 0 0 3px,
        green 4px 4px 10px;
}

Rules, Selectors, and Declaration Blocks

A CSS rule consists of a selector (e.g. h1) and declaration block ({}).

h1 {}

Multiple Selectors

When you group CSS selectors, you apply the same styles to several different elements without repeating the styles in your style sheet. Use a comma to separate multiple grouped selectors.

div, p { color: blue }

So the blue color applies to all <div> elements and all <p> elements. Without the comma only <p> elements that are a child of a <div> would be red.

This also applies to all types of selectors.

p, .blue, #first, div span{ color : blue }

This rule applies to:

• <p>
• elements of the blue class
• element with the ID first
• every <span> inside of a <div>

Remarks

For ease of readability, keep all declarations indented one level from their selector, and the closing curly brace on its own line. Add a single space after selectors and colons, and always place a semicolon after the final declaration.

Good

p {
    color: maroon;
    font-size: 16px;
}

Bad

p{
 color: maroon;
font-size:16px }

One-Liner

If there are only one or two declarations, you might get away with this one. Not recommended for most cases. Always be consistent when possible.

p { color: maroon; font-size: 16px; }